The Science of Politics

American students are falling behind while local school boards are preoccupied with culture war controversies. Is local democratic control of schools a detriment to improving student outcomes? Vlad Kogan finds that school boards regularly prioritize the needs of teachers and administrators over students. Elections are unrepresentative and sometimes partisan and drive schools to distraction. He draws surprisingly positive lessons from post-Katrina New Orleans and Chicago school closures and argues for on-cycle elections that grade schools on student achievement.

The Republican Congress has quickly remade fiscal policy, with substantially more success than in Trump’s first term. How did they achieve so much more without compromise? How much will their routes around the filibuster matter for the decline of congressional appropriations? And are we setting up for a huge new step in presidential spending power: pocket rescissions? Molly Reynolds of the Brookings Institution is the expert on how Congress bends the rules of the filibuster to make use of partisan majorities. We discuss how much Congress is ceding power to the President and making tax and spending decisions even more partisan.

After President Trump bombed Iran, Democrats in Congress declared the action illegal. But it follows a long history of increased presidential control of military operations along with congressional deference and abrogation of war powers. How did we get here? Casey Dominguez finds that although the founders bestowed war powers with Congress, by the Spanish-American war legislators had expanded their view of the president’s powers and begun applying a more expansive view to their own party’s presidents. The role of nationalism, the rise of American power, and polarization all have echoes today.

Politicians are launching outlandish negative attacks and Americans have developed more negative views of the other party. But how connected are polarizing politicians and a polarized electorate? Mia Costa finds that political elites have more polarized views of the other side than the public but they still benefit electorally and legislatively from avoiding negative partisan attacks. Divisive rhetoric still breeds viral tweets, cable news appearances, and donations, but Americans mostly don’t like it or reward it. The polarizers just get more attention.

Politics seems to be holding us back in a world of technological and social progress. Research has found health cures, invented magic new tools, and connected us all, often with public policy assistance. Yet, the American political system remains deeply divided and dysfunctional, with the relationship between science and government at a low point. Can we use social science not just to improve policy choices, but also to improve the functioning of the political system? Cowen—an influential researcher, blogger, podcaster, and author—has led the Progress Studies movement, which seeks to understand why progress happens and how to accelerate it. The movement has gained institutional support and stimulated new policy ideas to improve living standards and human flourishing. But it has not yet cracked the code on translating these ideas into political success. How can science can be deployed to improve the American political process, and how much does the Progress Studies movement depend on successful politics?

President Trump is claiming power over independent agencies and trying to redirect the administrative state, saying he is its unitary executive. But this is not the first time presidents have invoked broad authority. John Dearborn finds that President Reagan sought to gain power over civil rights agencies, saying they had gone too far in promoting affirmative action, restricting their activity and disciplining their leadership. Multiple current Supreme Court justices were involved in the saga, which helped build the unitary executive theory. David Hausman researches attempts to control the immigration courts under the first Trump administration, finding that both adding judges and setting precedent with Attorney General opinions were influential. But it mostly worked by building the bureaucracy, rather than restraining it.

Donald Trump’s expansive executive action has been met with a flurry of court action, as Democratic officials and liberal interest groups challenge each action—with a lot of early success. Can liberals succeed in limiting Trump through the courts or are American courts an inevitably conservative institution? Paul Nolette finds that Democratic Attorneys General have banded together to fight Trump, building on successful action last time. They are able to select the venues and usually win standing, becoming key actors in limiting executive action. But Brian Highsmith finds that over the long run, judicial supremacy tends to advance conservative goals in the American system. Even if Democrats win in the courts now, that may allow the judiciary to develop a longer term constraint on government.

Donald Trump has now unilaterally imposed huge global tariffs, upending the world economy. But we did get a preview of Trump’s trade approach in his first term, allowing researchers to analyze the political consequences. Thiemo Fetzer finds that China, the EU, Canada, and Mexico reacted to the first term tariffs strategically, trying to hurt Trump’s constituents. Omer Solodoch finds that the first term trade war announcement immediately hurt Trump politically, reducing approval and affecting voting intentions. They both say the new trade war is bigger, with political consequences likely to grow.

Nicholas Jacobs, a Colby College professor specializing in American political institutions, and Sidney Milkis from the University of Virginia, focus on the complexities of the Trump administration's approach to the administrative state. They discuss whether Trump is truly dismantling governmental structures or redirecting their power for conservative goals. The conversation touches on the rise of 'Trumpification' within the Republican Party, ideological tensions, and the evolving dynamics of presidential power in today's polarized political landscape.

We have the parties that we said we wanted: they compete over extensive policy programs, with voters making decisions among clear issue position alternatives. But how did they get here and have they now gone too far? Katherine Krimmel finds that the American parties became extensively programmatic as they lost vestiges of clientelism and became national parties after federal growth and civil rights. But Trump may be changing the nature of the party system. And running on the issues may not be all it’s cracked up to be.